All Over Her Face
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day three hundred and three: She could see when something was wrong, and it goes both ways.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 14th cycle. Now cycle 15!_

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**"All Over Her Face"  
Finn/Quinn  
Companion to "This Much I Know" **

He couldn't have ignored her completely even if he'd wanted to. For one thing, she still had looked out for him, but more still it was just impossible for him to flip a switch and stop caring for her when he'd been caring for her, for the baby, for so long. So, he still saw, and right then what he saw was that she was the one hurting this time around. Maybe he saw her because no one else did… and that was part of the problem.

So he watched… in class, Glee Club, in the halls… He didn't go out of his way, not really, he was just there. After a while, he could see something different in her eyes, not unlike determination. The pain was still there though, and the combination didn't inspire confidence. If she was going to do something, he wasn't going to leave her on her own. So he kept a closer eye now.

He still missed it, but when he spotted the paper posted all around the school, he knew just about immediately who had created this infamous 'glist.' As anonymous as it was, he knew it was Quinn's doing.

More than once he tried to approach her, but either the time wasn't right, or he couldn't get to her… or he was off helping Rachel with her bad reputation project… Even as opportunities went on missed, he maintained silence. He lied to Mr. Schue, even if on most occasions he trusted him. He wasn't going to get Quinn in trouble. He thought of taking the fall, but that could just become a mess and quick, especially if he messed up and they found her out. He wouldn't want to get Quinn in any more trouble than she might. So he played clueless and kept the secret.

He didn't see a problem with it, really. Everyone was making a big deal of it but for him, knowing it was Quinn's doing… He may not have known why he knew she wasn't out to hurt them. Knowing that, it then made that he could be… kind of amused by it.

It took a while more before he was able to get his shot at talking to her. But then he saw her coming out of the Glee room, with Mr. Schuester. The teacher gave her a small pat on the arm before moving along. Quinn stood there for a moment, breathing in and out, and it let Finn see that she had been crying…. So Mr. Schuester knew about the glist, Finn guessed. Quinn headed to her locker, not having seen him standing there. He took a few steps forward, watching as she opened the locker door and pulled out a stack of sheets. She put a notebook under them and was in the process of closing her locker when a boy ran by, close enough to cause the items in Quinn's hand to flutter and crash on to the ground. Instinctively, Finn ran up, especially at seeing that she was moving to pick the things up.

"Here, it's okay, I've got it," he told her, crouching and gathering up the sheets and notebook. He could see not only that they were copies of the glist, but also that it was a new, updated one. There was a moment of awkward silence as he stood back up with everything back in place. "There you go," he finally snapped out of it and handed the stack back with a quiet smile. She took them, nodding in response.

"Thanks," she told him, then, "I… I was going to get rid of those," she explained, then… "So… I wrote them," she realized she had to admit. He had to smile.

"I know," he told her, which pulled a miraculous and genuine smile from her.

"Right," she nodded. "You're not mad?" she asked slowly.

"Actually, I thought it was kind of funny," he shrugged. Her face shifted as though to say 'really?' "Why I was so low though…" he pondered, and still she smiled. "I did get higher there," he indicated the sheets. "Should get rid of those." Now she snapped out of it, moving to find a bin. Finn followed. "Are you okay?" he asked her. "Not the baby, I mean you, are you okay?" As they reached the bin, Quinn ripped the sheets in pieces and dumped them.

"Working on it," she looked back to Finn. "You knew it was me all this time?" He nodded. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I don't know, didn't feel like I should." He paused. "Why'd you do it?" She considered it, and her answer came as a bit more of a statement.

"At some point, I just became invisible… You still saw me…" He smiled and nodded. "I should go…" she told him, breathing out. "Thank you."

"No problem," he insisted, watching her go.

THE END

_[A/N: Attention, reader! If you're at all skilled in helping break fic-planning conundrums, give a big ol' shout! :D]  
(Note to self, don't put the words 'crack' and 'fic' next to each other, it leads to confusion ;))_

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**_[A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, story alert won't get you anything! ;)]_**


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